7 Common Programming Mistakes Beginners should Avoid

In this article, I am going to talk about the mistakes that beginner programmers make. If you are a beginner programmer, we do not mean to feel bad about the mistakes you make. Rather, we want to introduce you to them to avoid them. Follow us to the end of the article and find out what are the 7 Common Programming Mistakes Beginners should Avoid.

7 Common Programming Mistakes Beginners should Avoid

  1. Coding without planning
  2. Not caring about the quality of the code
  3. Choosing the First Solution
  4. Not Reviewing Your Codes
  5. Comparison, doubt and feeling of self-doubt and fear
  6. You Think You Know everything
  7. Laziness in doing exercises

1. Coding without planning

As you know, quality content cannot be created easily. It needs thinking and research. High quality programs are no exception.

Writing quality programs is a process that involves thinking, researching, designing, writing, acknowledging, and changing. You need to make it a habit to always skip the right amount of these activities.

One of the biggest mistakes programmers make is that the programmer immediately starts writing code without thinking or researching. While this may work for a small, standalone application, it does have a major negative impact on larger applications.

Just as you have to think before you say something you may regret, you have to think and plan about that program or project before you code. Programming is also a way to convey your thoughts.

Do not think of programming as writing some code. Programming is a logic-based creativity that needs to be nurtured.


2. Not caring about the quality of the code

If you can only focus on one aspect of the code you write, it should be readability. Unclear and incomprehensible code has no value or validity.

Never underestimate the importance of code quality. Look at programming as a way to implement communication. Your main task as a programmer is to clearly state the implementation of the solutions you are working on.

Another simple tip is to use long lines. It is very difficult to read anything over 80 characters. When coding, try to avoid writing long lines of code and pay attention to indentations and bumps to provide clean code.


3. Choosing the First Solution

This is for beginners. When they encounter a problem, they find a solution and just work with it. They speed up the implementation immediately before thinking about the complexities and possible failures of the identified solution.

While the first solution may be tempting, good solutions are usually discovered when you question all the solutions you have found. If you can not think of several solutions to a problem, it is probably a sign that you do not fully understand the problem.

It is not your job as a professional programmer to find a solution to a problem. Finding the easiest solution to the problem. By “simple” I mean that the solution should work well and work well enough but still be simple enough to read, understand and memorize.


4. Not Reviewing Your Codes

Some of the code looks bad, but there may be certain circumstances around it that have forced the developer to write it this way.

You should know that any code you do not understand is not bad. Question it and ask others about it. If the author of that code is long gone or can not remember it, research that code and try to understand everything about it.

Only when you fully understand the code can you comment on whether it is good or bad. Do not assume anything before that. Worse, if you use non-standard methods, you may repeat that bad practice elsewhere in your code. Because it is learned as what you thought was good and becomes a habit.


5. Comparison, doubt and feeling of self-doubt and fear

It is human nature to always compare ourselves to others. The same is true in programming. You see a talented programmer who is good at solving problems and getting things done quickly, you start to doubt your ability which is not good. Some people can easily understand this concept and others can take time to understand, but if you are interested in programming, slow and continuous learning is much better than fast learning.

Programming can sometimes be scary for you, and you may feel that you are not good enough at coding. When in doubt, always remember that you have to face it with courage and you have to not be afraid. Programming is a way to accept challenges and help others solve their problems, but before that, please be yourself and help yourself first.

Recognize your weakness and work on it with the help of others, watching tutorials, or join a programming community.


6. You Think You Know everything

This is a really exciting feeling for beginners and part of the wrong programming mentality when their code starts working without any problems. Eventually, they put in a lot of effort to learn the coding, and eventually, they successfully wrote a program that really works. You will enjoy coding, your confidence will increase, and you may even start teaching others.

It’s really fun to learn so much, but if we look at more complex projects built by top-notch developers on Github, or just check the code you wrote a few months ago, You will notice that your code needs to be changed. This also applies to experienced programmers.

Always remember that programming is a marathon in which there is no finish line. Every day new technology, frameworks, and cases appear in the world, so learning programming content is endless. Do not underestimate your ability, but do not overestimate your ability.

7. Laziness in doing exercises

Reading a thousand lines of code is useless. There is a big difference between reading theoretical programming and doing things practically. Real code practice should never be overlooked in programming. Reading a few lines of code or watching a few videos is easy to learn, then you tell your brain that you understand everything, but when you start writing code, you realize that you are repeating the mistakes of novice programmers.

When you touch the code, you will notice that you have inserted a semicolon in a line of code, and the brackets also have difficulty writing a loop. But to get rid of all of this, all you have to do is work on it yourself, keep practicing it, fix some errors, debug those errors, and finally figure out how to put all the little pieces together.

Programming is a skill that is acquired through practice.

Alan Turing

Conclusion:

You can’t go over a hundred years overnight and expect to get a job like programming without effort. Now that you have chosen programming as your profession, it is better to first get acquainted with some of these Common Programming Mistakes for beginners so that you do not get caught in these mistakes.

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